Refreshing Our Budget: Hygiene

Two weeks ago I looked at our Food Budget and this week I’m moving forward to tackle another budget category.

Our Household category needs to be overhauled! Do you have a budget category that you feel is out of control? Our household spending has been all over the place. Just to show you how bad it is, here is a look at August and September.

August: $545.35September: $231.96

This is crazy. When I looked into what I was actually spending this money on, it began to make more sense. I listed toilet paper, toothpaste, toothbrushes, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, etc. These were all necessary and needed to be replenished. Then I saw I that I listed a new beach bag, glass containers for the kitchen, new water bottles, etc. These items made life nicer/easier, but don’t need to be replenished from month to month. When I took these items out of this category, here is how the spending in August and September looked.

August: $185.76September: $189.96

With this knowledge, I’ve decided to separate out those nice to have items from the consumables. The consumables will be our Hygiene Budget, while we will move those other purchases over to a Fun Category (I’ll address this in another post).

In an effort to help be a bit more conscientious of our spending, I’m making a goal to only spend $150 in October. We’ve spent $102.52 so far, but I think we are pretty set. If we can make this happen, I can save us $30 a month and hopefully a lot more by not disguising those fun purchases as necessities!

Is there a spending category you feel you need to split into two different groups? Or have you found a unique way to save on your hygiene budget?

We're not certified financial planners or otherwise financial experts; this blog contains information and entertainment (if you can call it that). We can't promise that Chris didn't make a typo in his math or that what's represented in these articles is appropriate for you or anyone else. Proceed with caution and a sense of humor :)